Fishing Log

[Ness]

I know I've heard some of you mention doing this before but I've decided to give it a try for this season. So now I have some questions :-) Can you buy a fishing log? Or do you just go with any old blank notebook? I can think of lots of info to keep in it... Like the date, the weather, the water temp, where you fished, what you used with what results, and what you caught.
Anything else I should keep track of???? I think it'll be interesting to look it over next winter and use it to help plan some strategy. Besides, I've got a lousy memory... I suppose a large ziploc bag will be needed to keep it dry. Ah, one more thing to keep under the driver's seat :-)

[Dutchman]

Ness, I use a notepad calender, the one with the month on 2 pages and a box for notes , appointments etc. on each day. Keep it in the glove box of the boat and right brief discriptions of weather, coordinates, baits attempted, succesful baits and overall fishing success. Hope this helps.... Jeff

[Backwater Eddy]

I have seen the PC fishing logs but don't know what one is best Ness. Microsoft Works calendar could work in a pinch tell you find a download that is well recommended.

I too am interested in what is considered the best Fishing Log for the PC.

WC could sell a ton of them if the log was functional an easy to use.

Good topic Ness!

BE...

{Patience is said to be a virtue, so lets all hurry up and find some!}

[Jim Carroll]

I use FishNet computer software to record my fishing trip info.
http://web.ndak.net/~onpoint/
Its easy to use and it has more features than I really need. You record your data on the water on a waterproof erasable card. FishNet has very good data search and management functions with GPS log, address book, calandar/diary, and other features that I use to budget and record my fishing and tournament expenses. I believe there are other programs on the market with similar features. I have had good luck with this one. JC

[sib]

hi Ness,
fishing hotspots makes a nice log already for your info to be put in. the nice thing about the product is that it is made of that nice waterproof material their maps are made of. add a sharpie and your in business. saw them for $4.99 at gander mt.

"go outside and play"
sib

[Bret N]

Hi Ness,

I just use a regular business calendar/notebook with a full page for each day of the week. I keep it on my coffee table and record the day's fishing trip in it when I get home. Sometimes, I'm pretty good at recording everything, temp, weather, wind, water temp, bait, presentation etc, and sometimes not so good. But I'm usually pretty good about writing something good that happened on each trip.

It is really nice is to have something in writing to look back on time and again. That way when you get done writing about a particulary ugly day afield ( and they happen to all of us from time to time) you can leaf through your journal to read about some of your better days. I've only been journaling my trips, both hunting and fishing, for a couple years, but being able to relive those memories whenever I want in detail is where the journal truly shines. Having the raw data of each trip is nice and you do learn something each time out, but capturing the experience and flavor of each trip is what makes the "tool" of journaling special. Sorry for posting this book, but I can't say enough good things about recording each trip in some type of journal. Bret

[Den]

Ness, here are the basics of what you need to keep.Date, time started, Air temp, water temp, clear or cloudy sky, rain, or not, wind direction and speed, water clarity, types of lures used, presentation(casting or trolling), if trolling, best speed and direction.surface conditions (flat or choppy). Gps numbers , this may sound like a lot, but after a few trips it becomes automatic. and best of all , believe me it helps on every trip after the first year too. I have been doing this every year since 1972, and it has helped like you wouldnt believe. i also keep a note book handy for the little comments like where and what in a certain spot, and anything small that you think that you will remember, but always forget. good luck and good fishin.
Den

[Backwater Eddy]

Den, I seen a long time duck hunting guide on ESPN that had the same long term log, 40+ years on wings.

He made it into a book and has done very well with it. Ton's of great info there for sure. I would love to take a peak into you book!

BE...

{Patience is said to be a virtue, so lets all hurry up and find some!}

[Ness]

I'd do drastic things to get a good look at Den's book.... :-)

[Mattman]

Ness

Just made my own. I took one of those Dayrunner organizer binders and pulled out the stuff I didn't want. I took some of my favorite lakes, printed them off and laminated them. Same with solunar tables. Then I created a sheet on the computer with spaces for all of the info I wanted to keep track of. Across the top are labeled spaces for Lake, Day, Date, Air Temp., Water Temp. and Barometer. Just below that are two groups of icons that can be circled; Weather (sunny, ps, pc, cloudy, precip.) and Moon Phase (full, quarter, new, quarter). I usually circle the closest moon phase and put a +2 over it if its two days past, for example. Below that are 15 numbered blanks that are for writing in particular lures you are using. Below that are 2 rows/ 4 columns of "squares". Above each "square" is a blank for fish species. In each square there are 20 boxes (4 x 5), arranged like a graph. Across the top are labels for Length, Weight, Lure and Depth. This allows recording of 5 fish in each "square". With 8 "squares" thats 40 fish. And at the bottom there are 8 or 10 lines for comments. I write down wind, times, patterns etc. I used to just write stuff down but that took too long. I wanted something that I could just circle or fill in blanks.

[wtnsdwalleye]

I too keep a log book similar to what others here have described. Ness, if you can manage it, I too would like to see how Den and Mattman arrange the pages of their books. I like the sounds of both. I keep the same basic data that Den does in a standard spiral bound notebook. It is not pretty but fun to read when we are up to our "you know whats" in snow. I think a computer page like Mattman is describing would be much neater and better organized. A person could print it out and store in chronologically in a binder. Be nice if someone would create a computer program so we could do querys by lure etc.

Changed my name from sdwalleye to wtnsdwalleye. Someone else is useing the former handle.

[Hans]

>Be nice if someone would create a computer program so
>we could do querys by lure etc.

I can do that. How 'bout you folks get together a list of what you'd like recorded (not everything need be recorded for each individual catch), and I'll code up a program (Windows only), along with a "data entry" form to carry in the boat.

Just off the top of my head, I can see wanting to do queries by:

Date (or range of dates)
Month
Time of day (in selectable blocks of hour increment)
Species
Lake
Water depth
Water temp
Sky (sunny/cloudy/darkness)
Wind (speed/direction)
Surface (glass, rippled, chop)
Moon phase
Lure/bait
Presentation (trolling/casting/jigging/other)
What else?


My contribution to the good folks who've helped me here.

Hans

[bernie]

how about a note column i write down thimgs i see or here about at the ramp this helps me the next time conditions are the same

[Ness]

Wow, Hans, that would be absolutely fantastic if you could do that for us.

[Den]

Hans, you pretty much have it all covered there, if you get it going let me know, it definately be neater than mine, lol.but as long as it is wrote down , it is there for refrences.also a little space for notes for the day would be nice too. good luck and good fishin.
Den

[Someday]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-15-01 AT 00:59AM (CST)[p]How about a little area where you can write general notes like who you were with, if you had fun or you threw your partner out of the boat. I would also like expenses in there somehow so I can tally up gas, bait, oil, lodging, meals, lures etc.

[wtnsdwalleye]

Hans,
This looks great. Only a couple other things come to mind. By species, the number of fish kept and released. Not a crucial thing to have but fun to go back and look at.

[Mattman]

If anyone would like to take a look at my page to get some ideas I can e-mail you a scan of it.

[Mattman]

Barometer

Fish sizes. Length, weight, girth. I don't size every fish but anything over 14" gets put up to the tape and everything over 19" gets weighed and fish over 30" get girthed.

GPS info.

Previous weather. Is this the first day of a cold front or is it day 4? Has the wind been blowing constantly from the same direction for 2 days? etc.

[stotch]

Say Mattman,
I would appreciate it if you could email me a copy of your log sheets. Stotch@webtv.net

Thanks

[Greg W]

Ness, and others,
I asked this same question last year and put together a not so perfect "Daily Fishing Log". I would be happy to email to anyone who wants it(its on MS-Word). I simply print out a blank page, then either I fill it out, or someone else on the boat fills it out on our way back from the trip.
Here's what I have listed;
Date
Lake(Port fished out of, and GPS #'s)
Who's on Board
Air Temp.
Skies
Wind
Wave height
Water temp
Water clarity
Depth
Trolling speed
Big fish
Number of fish, and type
Number of lost fish:(
Hot lures
Presentation
Average Lures
Presentation
and most importantly FUNNY HAPPENINGS:), as there is always something funny to remember about the day.

Hans, I would be very interested in what you come up with.
Greg W

[Hans]

Can do.

Hans

--

[Hans]

I'll include a free-form "comments" section.

Hans

--
"I long for the dear old lakeshore, where I dreamed my youth away;
for a dreamer lives forever, and a toiler dies in a day.
From the sleepless thoughts endeavor, I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever, And a thinker dies in a day."

[Hans]

Uhhh, yeah! I guess size/weight might be an interesting tidbit to include! (How did I forget that!)

By the way, everyone, this will be a "freebie", but will encourage a $10.00 donation to:

. Minnesota Conservation Volunteer
. Dept. of Natural Resources
. 500 Lafayette Road
. St. Paul, MN 55155-4046

Hans

[JasonMN]

Hans and all,

How about an "online" logging program? Users could update/view their personal logs via the web. This would give a person access from any computer to their log. Most data could be kept confidential but we could use some of the general data to identify trends in relation to weather patterns and moon phases etc.

I'd be more than happy to develop and host this. Although I only have a 128K ISDN connection. This will not allow for high volumes of traffic. If someone has an WindowsNT/IIS4 server with more bandwidth they could host it...otherwise we could just make do.

Please let me know what you all think.

JasonMN

[Pete(OH)]

for what it's woth i also cut out the daily weather from the paper and staple it to that days sheet.....

[Pete(OH)]

for what it's worth i also cut out the daily weather from the paper and staple it to that days sheet.....

[Den]

Greg, it seems as though you have all the information needed in your listings. it looks kind of familiar, i wonder where it came from, lol. good job. it only takes a few minutes to do. but is worth a whole lot more the following years. the best thing to watch when looking at the log from previous years is-- not the date, but the water temp, and air temp. this is mainly for the summer months . moon phases helps, but i am not a real believer in that until it gets within 3 days before full moon to 3 days after the full moon. i have seen a real consistancy here for musky as well as with walleye.spring days will fall into a definate pattern(again with water temp), as will the fall . summer there are a lot of things that will be different, but the water , air and lake conditions will let you know what to do when you look at the notes. it will surprise you when you look back and see, gee this is a few days different than last year, but the temps are the same, and the fish were here when that happened. good luck and good fishin to all. keep the pencil handy.
Den

[Someday]

Will do.
THANKS Hans. This is going to be great.

[Greg W]

Den, you were a major contributor, Thanks again.

[Kodiak]

How about a column for GPS coordinates?
Makes it easier to get back to a hot spot.

[Kodiak]

How about a column for GPS coordinates. It makes it easier to get back to those hot spots.

[IaCraig]

Hans,

That would be great, and I would be very interested in it too! I thought many times about using the "forms" of MS access to build a quick GUI, but I have never gotten around too putting it all together.

My dad has been fishing 2-3 "full" days each week since he retired over 10 years ago. I really wish he had kept a log, and this year I'm going to ask him to start keeping a paper diary. Even if my kids someday move out of the midwest, it would be a great heirloom for future generations.


IaCraig

[Backwater Eddy]

Lot's of good idea's!

How about a data graph for each individual field of data collected, set up over a yearly calendar?

If you could overlap or compare one data graph with another, wind direction compared to water temp for instance, you could more quickly see pattern's.

Collection of data is crucial, as is ease of evaluation to apply what you have learned.

BE..><ND>

[Butch]

Hans,
I don't know if you want this but?
Sub-catagories under presentation? (If applicable)
Rod?
Reel?
Line?
Depth?
Amount of Line out?
Trolling speed?
etc.

[ufda]

When Hans has this developed, could you put it up on WC? Not everybody's records (though that would be cool - you could hide the GPS numbers), but I was thinking the blank form so we could download it and make our our modifications?
ufda

[Hans]

Two things:

1) It will be copyrighted. (I will distribute it free, but will copyright to prevent commercial exploitation.)

2) It will be so good you won't want to make any modifications!

Hans